A 12-part guide to the UK in 212 words each

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Accents

In the movies, one might notice British characters have a tendency to talk in one of three stock accents - "English gentleman" (eg Hugh Grant), "Scottish/Irish hero" (eg Mel Gibson) or "Cockney chimney sweep" (eg Dick Van Dyke). But in reality, the UK has a rich mosaic of many different accents. Dominic Watt, a linguist at the University of York, says in the Border regions, where he has studied, you can hear a different accent just by walking down a road or crossing a bridge. The differences aren't just in rural areas. The Liverpool accent is quite different from its near neighbour Manchester. Some even say they can detect a softer south Liverpool accent and a grittier one from the city's north side. Corby in Northamptonshire has an accent known as "Corbyite" that has tones influenced by the many settlers there from the west of Scotland. Researchers have described a new accent they call Multicultural London English influenced by Caribbean, South Asian and West African immigrants. Others have referred to it as Jafaican. Overlaid on the regional differences, Watt says class distinction in speaking is also greater than in other countries. The Olympics themselves offer an opportunity to sample these myriad accents, as Team GB has representatives who speak many of them.

The bobby

Fuzz. Po-lis. Old Bill. Plod. Rozzers. Bizzies. All are slang names for the police in the UK of differing levels of friendliness. Perhaps the kindest is "bobbies", after Sir Robert (hence "Bobby") Peel, who founded the Metropolitan police in 1829. Television captured or perhaps created the image of the "bobby" in Dixon of Dock Green. The series lasted more than 20 years until 1976. Dixon was avuncular, in touch with his community, a carer as well as a copper. He ended each programme speaking directly to the audience as though he really was the bobby on your beat. Look at Dixon through the eyes of a visitor and two things stand out. First, there's his helmet. Based on a Victorian design, it is still worn by many male police officers in England and Wales, particularly those tasked to smile at tourists. The helmet doesn't play much of a protective role, but it has proved invaluable at sporting events. Second, Dixon carries no gun. Forty years on and despite his screen successors being far more muscular, British police officers do not routinely carry firearms. For some this is the success of the British model where there is consent to the bobby's authority. Perhaps, though, the British are just sufficiently respectful of the truncheon.

Class

A three-tier class system is synonymous with the UK to outsiders, at least among those who boosted Downton Abbey's international audiences. But, says cultural commentator Peter York, it's much more nuanced than that. The British, he believes, are experts at chronicling each strata's many sub-divisions. This is a country, indeed, in which Nancy Mitford could categorise words as "U" (upper-class) or "non-U" (aspirational middle class) - looking glass versus mirror, for instance, or napkin versus serviette. The nation's favourite sitcoms rely on a keen awareness of class. For instance, the tension between upwardly-mobile lower-middle-class Captain Mainwaring and the downwardly-mobile upper-middle-class Sgt Wilson in Dad's Army. Or the attempts of the Trotters to escape Peckham in Only Fools and Horses. Yet York believes the UK is no more class-bound than, say, the US - simply better at signifying how the system works.